Product Description

Great Book by Osprey Publishing. 80 pagesThe F4F Wildcat, like the RAFs Spitfire and the Flying Tigers P-40, was an aircraft that legends were made of. An aircraft approaching obsolescence when it first entered combat, it managed to hold up against seemingly impossible odds. While the Wildcat did not possess the handling performance that made the Japanese Zero so famous, it was well regarded for its ruggedness and firepower. In the hands of a skilled pilot who understood both its strengths and weaknesses, it was capable of holding its own against the best its opponents had to offer. The Grumman F4F was originally conceived as a biplane design in 1935. However, it was a time when the monoplane was finally being recognized as the next evolutionary step in military aviation. Between July 1936 and April 1938, the fighter would be developed into the mid-wing F4F-2. This model would eventually lose out to the competing Brewster F2A-1 in April 1938. However, the U.S. Navy was impressed enough with the fighter that it decided to go ahead with its development. As fate would have it, the F4F-3 Wildcat was the predominant U.S. Navy and Marine Corp fighter at the time the United States entered World War II, and continued to be so for the first half of 1942. Over time, the F4F-3 evolved into the F4F-4, 5, and 7, FM-1, FM-2 and the Martlet series (Mk. I through MK. VI). A prototype was even developed for a seaplane version, the F3F-3S. The F4F was in continuous use until the end of hostilities.Monogram released the first true model of the F4F Wildcat in the 1960s. In 1994, Tamiya introduced its F4F-3 Wildcat kit, highly regarded as an accurate and easy to build kit. More kits from a number of manufactures have followed over the years. This title will show four variations of the F4F series the F4F-3, FM-2, Martlet III and the Martlet IV. These four variants will finished in a variety of colour schemes and markings that will make each model unique and distinct from the other builds.